Tuesday, August 31, 2010

So, I watch Glenn Beck's show last night and tonight to get his take on his 8/28 rally.

Tonight, he juxtaposed images and speech of the 8/28 attendees and speakers with some of the unhinged left. He had clips of people like Ben Jealous, Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz. It's like the plan was to get these cretins to go on record as hate mongers. They obliged. Brilliant. Good job.

Last night Beck was somewhat less watchable.

He started off talking about miracles at the rally. He said there were many. He said one of the most impressive ones was that a flock of geese did a fly-over, right over the reflecting pool and perfectly timed for the beginning of the rally. He shows a homemade video of the geese. He mentions that he had tried to get an airplane flyover arranged, but you're not allowed to do that in DC. The geese: Coincidence? Beck thinks not: "Divine providence." "God's flyover."
He then discussed the rally attendance, civility, speakers. He used the word God 5 times as often as Obama says the word I. Nothing wrong with the former, of course - at a revival. Nothing wrong with the latter at a narcissists convention.

For Beck it was 95% "God," rather than the Founders appreciation of the Judeo-Christian traditions they inherited. It was not about the biggest single modification they made to those principles; that Government has no business establishing a religion - which is why most of the Founders were here. No, Beck went on (and on) about God and Burning Bushes. It begins to seem that if you don't get these points in detail you can't help yourself, or the country.

Near the end of the show, he spends a minute telling you you have to tithe 10%.

Beck is a taste I have acquired because he has been teaching people things they never knew, or at least, challenging what they think they know. However, because of his accelerating and hammering invocation of his view of the supernatural, his political message has a whiff of theocracy. Glenn, we get it, stop reprising a Billy Graham revival.
Look, our natural rights exist irrespective of the source, and a solid argument is needed to explain why we would have any in the absence of a Deity. Justification of natural rights through mysticism leaves one open to the charge that the Gods of other cultures should be given equal sway and that, in any case, your particular claim cannot be logically questioned "with boldness," or, in fact, at all. The use of religion to justify the political is anathema. It is the fatal conceit of Islam.

Beck has not explicitly linked God to specific political policies, but he is incessant in claiming Christianity's God is the only hope for the country - politically. Beck is right about this much: The moral underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian tradition/philosophy are the best hope for individual freedom, and therefore this country. As a practical matter this means attempting to live up to the ideals, whatever the motivation.

God doesn't withhold rights from non-believers, but neither does He enforce them for anyone. It's up to individuals to secure those rights and to make use of them.
We have the rights whether there is God or not. I am not sure whether Glenn Beck would agree.

Did they have a premonition? Depending on the issue, 55 to 70+ percent of Americans disagree, in detail, with the enactment of the Obamas' philosophy as well as the methods of enactment.

Many people seem to have joined the "bitter gun and religion clingers" demographic the President identified in comments made in San Francisco. Many of these newcomers must have voted for Barack Obama. Are they deluded, or just stupid? Do an overwhelming majority of Americans now justify the First Lady's charge that this "country is just mean?" Can she have enjoyed a second moment of her lifetime of being proud of this country since election day 2008?

The American people must be a great disappointment to both of them. But, I don't feel sorry for them: Americans' reaction is what they both predicted.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Nancy Pelosi wants the 70 percent plus of Americans who oppose the building of a Mosque at ground zero investigated. I think I can save Congress some money on that with a brief review of comments from the main proponents of the mosque: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Kahn. Here's why there is opposition:

Imam Rauf;

"The Muslim world has felt for a long time besieged by the West, by Western culture, Western faith traditions, Western atheism from the Soviet Union…"

The Soviet Union is a Western culture? Who knew? Perhaps we should take with a grain of salt Imam Rauf's conflation of Sharia with the Constitution.

He also tells us:

"Um, we tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims…"

Really? Who was in Kosovo - protecting Muslims? And, guess what. Al-Qaeda has more Muslim blood on its hands than anybody except perhaps Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeni.

Imam Rauf's wife tells us the 13 story mosque - named the Cordoba Center, to be opened on September 11th at ground zero - is all about outreach and healing. She should fire her PR firm.

When challenged by protests from those to whom she is presumably outreaching - over 70 percent of Americans (whom she says are Republicans) - this is her healing gesture:

"This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism, that's what we feel right now," Khan said. "It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia; it's hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned."

...[The project] has to go ahead. There is too much at stake."

Daisy, it's not hate of Muslims. It's about your lack of respect and consummate disingenuity.

If the official policy of the United States is that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “two states living side-by-side in peace,” how can the State Department be using, for diplomatic missions to Arab states, an emissary [Rauf] who doesn’t believe Hamas is a terrorist organization and who favors a one-state solution in which the Jewish state is disappeared?

Friday, August 20, 2010

Ever since ACORN employees counselled a young couple on the best way to open a brothel employing underage illegal aliens - and avoid taxes on the booty - I've been thinking election fraud, the former ACORN trademark, would decline as well. Apparently the message didn't get through to Michigan Democrats.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Let me summarize my understanding of the argument in favor of the 13 story mosque proposed to be built at ground zero: "We need to let the taqiyya vanguard build it so that we may show their barbarian confreres the beauty of a democratic republic observing freedom of religion and the rule of law. We're BETTER than they are!"

Taken at face value, this is not a conciliatory message. Taken seriously, it is an appeasement. However they intend it, this argument is presented by American politicians like New York Mayor Bloomberg, by American publications such as the New York Times, and by many other of our President's fellow travelers who cheered his momentary approval of the GZM.

Even so, thoughtful Americans feel conflicted about the Ground Zero Mosque. For them, there is a tension between the Founding principle: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", and our knowledge that adherents of a particular religion attacked us because of their beliefs. We can be sure the 9/11 murderers died with their God's name on their lips.

Our problem:

We recognize that interference in religious matters is tyranny.

We don't want a 13 story mosque built where 3,000 people died at the hands of Muslims.

The unease I feel starts with the fact that this mosque is sufficiently ostentatious to be seen as a victory monument. And that interpretation is consistent with the practices of Islamic conquerors over the ages.

The Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain, is a symbol of the golden age of Islam. It began as a Christian church, became a mosque upon the Muslim conquest of Spain, and is now a Catholic cathedral. The history of these conversions appears to be gradual and gentle, but that is not the point I think is being emphasized in the Manhattan naming: "The Cordoba Center." I fear the audience for this brand is outside the United States, and that they are inimical to the United States.

My disquiet is reinforced by comments made by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the GZM promoter, that "Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common," and by his advocacy of "plural jurisdiction" - meaning enclaves of sharia - in Great Britain.

And that brings us to this point: Islam is not merely a religion. It is a theocracy. Morality from the State clerics. Law from the State clerics. Practices of worship from the State clerics. Islam does not render unto Caesar. It IS Caesar.

It is a political and legal system driven by mysticism. Precisely the thing our First Amendment was intended to prevent.

If the mystical bit of Islam conformed to the understanding that a just government has neither the power to decree religious belief, nor the ability to enforce religious law, then I would find the GZM unobjectionable; but the melding of political imperative with religious zealotry must cause us to think again about tolerating the proposed insult. I repeat, a 13 story mosque on Ground Zero is not a reaching out.

Islam cannot be understood except as a theocratic state, with sharia as its law - given by clerics at their whim. Freely elected representatives are not part of the equation.

If Feisal Abdul Rauf wants to reach out, let him build a modest, apologetic structure - not a triumphalist one. I'm good if he names it the Atonement Center and limits it to 2 stories. That would show Imam Rauf gets the difference between the phrases "hallowed ground" and "the 9/11 debris field."

Alternately, he could start lobbying for a one room multi-faith prayer site in Mecca. THAT would really be reaching out.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Very few people understand that money printing is a form of robbing the citizens of their money and their work. Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange for goods and services equalling the value of the good or the service produced. For example, an individual works extremely hard to earn an annual wage of say $40,000 which he receives in the form of paper money. The government, due to its mismanagement and incompetence simultaneously prints $40,000 in order to cover its deficits. So the government has by pressing a button produced the same amount of money that a man had to work a year for.

Monday, August 16, 2010

I was especially impressed by this bit: "This is, the EEOC says, because blacks and Hispanics are over-represented among felons."

I have noted that the term "felony" has been pushed to such an extent that it's often a joke, or should be. I am aware that young inner-city males are more prone to crime and typically have a higher epidermal melanin content than the general population. I do not see how these facts should affect an employer's decision to hire in a positive way.

I mean, I get why the EEOC promulgates this PC stupidity, but the logic they claim to be using to justify it escapes me.

The felons committed the felonies even if the definition of felony has been over-extended. This is a problem of the legislature.

Many of those felonies were committed against fellow high-melanin content persons in the course of drug commerce. This is a problem of the convicted on both sides of the transaction.

Neither should be a problem of the prospective employer, who, in any case, is legally prohibited by the EEOC from asking the kinds of questions which might otherwise reveal character.

"Over representation" can occur only if the justice system is totally corrupt. That's what the EEOC is actually saying.

Friday, August 06, 2010

According to a Rassmussen poll 9% of Americans, and I have to use the term loosely here: "Just 9% Want No Limits on What Federal Government Can Do."

These people live in the wrong country. I, for one, would be happy to contribute to the purchase of one-way tickets to North Korea for all of them.

These views are overwhelming shared across virtually all partisan and demographic lines.

The only exception is America’s Political Class. By a 54% to 43% margin, the Political Class believes the federal government should be allowed to do most anything. Mainstream voters reject that view by a 94% to three percent (3%) margin.

Sunday, August 01, 2010

First the NYT, now Slate, recognize that Electric Vehicle subsidies are a boondoggle. This Slate article points out that the market for 4 seat electric hatchbacks with the appointments of a Cobalt, but priced like a BMW 335i, is composed primarily of those whose household income is over $200K, and "where weather, state regulations, and infrastructure are all favorable to electric vehicles." This accurately describes certain areas in Southern California.

...Annual sales [of all EVs] will hit no more than 465,000 by 2020 ... a mere rounding error in a 250-million-car national fleet.

...It's doubtful that the government's electric-car push can "create" net jobs, as opposed to moving them around within the economy. Absent robust consumer demand, of course, the new production facilities will go idle and lose money.

...The shakeout should begin within five years... [and] factory workers in Michigan will be back out on the street—unless their companies successfully lobby for a [yet another] federal bailout.

...Of all the findings in Deloitte's market research, the most poignant was its profile of electric car "non-adopters." They have average household incomes of $54,000, live in the suburbs and rural areas, and depend heavily on their cars. There are millions and millions of nonadopters all across America. They are the middle class.

It has been argued that the subsidies to manufacturers and to buyers are necessary for the preservation of the middle class. In reality, the middle class are the people contributing the largest share of tax dollars to subsidize Volts and Leafs for drivers in West Los Angeles with household incomes of $200K - so that handful of UAW members may enjoy a very uncertain employment future.

I disagree with Republican Michigander regarding outsourcing. For example, we should not be preventing it via subsidy for battery factories, but he's right about Rick Snyder. I would prefer that either Cox or Hoekstra were clear alternatives to stop Snyder, and I'll be looking to the polling data to decide which to vote for.

Amendment I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II - A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III - No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII - In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

The Other Club blog takes its name from a dining club founded by Winston Churchill and F. E. Smith in 1911.Rule 12 of that club: "Nothing in the rules or intercourse of the Club shall interfere with the rancour or asperity of Party politics."

Copyright 2005-2017, The Other Club blog. Watermark theme. Theme images by bopshops. Powered by Blogger.